Wary Clinton Strides Into Glare of History

VANCOUVER, Canada — Air Force One, its blue and white fuselage glistening with rain, glided to a stop with customary grace as an honor guard of red-coated Canadian Mounties stood at attention awaiting review. Bill Clinton, forsaking umbrella and coat despite a downpour, strode down the plane’s steps, an unrivaled world figure making his first appearance on the international stage.

Yet for all the pomp and majesty of the moment, there was behind the President’s solemn mask the slight but unmistakable hesitation of a man beginning to make his way down a slippery, unknown trail.

Clinton--a relaxed, almost casual politician at most times--on Saturday morning was unusually formal, aware that this first, crucial meeting with Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin was not just another campaign stop in Ashtabula, Ohio, or even an address to the U.S. Congress.

In dealing with his besieged counterpart from the Kremlin, Clinton had to project enough power to make his pledge of aid convincing but not come on so strong as to overshadow the Russian president and his crestfallen nation. He knew that the impressions formed in the United States and abroad from this weekend’s meeting will last throughout his tenure in office, for better or worse.

And though Clinton was elected to help solve America’s long-neglected social and economic problems, he is convinced that--as the wheel of history has turned--all his hopes for domestic renewal and redirection may ride on the fate of Yeltsin and Russia.

A Russian collapse into chaos or angry reaction to the West, with its attendant effects on the American defense budget and world view, would be “an Administration-buster,” one senior aide acknowledged.

Summits are totemic events. The images remain long after the words are forgotten and their meaning lost.

Perhaps the most lasting image from Saturday’s session came as the two presidents paused together behind the ocher, Mediterranean-style mansion of the president of the University of British Columbia, magnificently sited among firs and cedars high above the Strait of Georgia. Heather in shades of lavender and blooming rhododendrons formed a fragrant, colorful frame for the tableau.

There, the two men looked out over the uncertain sea.

Here was an image of a prosperous, well-fed young man with his down-at-the-heels uncle, talking about how much the younger man might be willing to invest in the uncle’s latest business venture.

This isn’t a handout, Clinton is insisting, this is a sound business transaction. I don’t expect to be repaid right away, he is saying, but I do want to review the balance sheet now and again. Or, as the President put it in Annapolis, Md., on Thursday: “It’s not an act of charity. It’s an investment in our own future.”

Conscious of the need to maintain Yeltsin’s dignity and the threat posed back in Russia if Yeltsin was to be seen as a supplicant of the West, a senior Administration official said Saturday: “It is important that Yeltsin not be misperceived as someone coming here for aid. You will not hear us talking about aid as much as partnership and investment.”

Despite the stakes, top Clinton aides insisted the new President felt no opening-night jitters. “He’s very calm, very focused,” said a senior White House aide traveling with Clinton. “He went for a jog this morning, and he’s in a very good mood.”

Clinton himself said Saturday, as if trying to persuade himself--as well as to reassure the world--”I don’t feel under any pressure. I’m glad that this day has arrived.”

Clinton ran four miles in the drizzle in Portland, Ore., before flying to Vancouver for Saturday’s meetings with Yeltsin. Aboard the plane, he read briefing materials and chatted with National Security Adviser Anthony Lake and special envoy for Russian aid Strobe Talbott.

Friday evening, at a working dinner for staff at the Benson Hotel in Portland, Clinton swore in his old Oxford roommate Talbott, who had just been confirmed by the Senate, using a Gideon Bible scrounged from a hotel night stand.

Fellow Oxonian Robert B. Reich, now Clinton’s secretary of labor, held the volume as Clinton administered the oath of office to Ambassador Talbott. Tears formed in the three men’s eyes.

In Vancouver on Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney greeted each president separately at the international airport and hosted a lunch for them at the home of the president of the University of British Columbia, known as Norman MacKenzie House.

After lunch, Clinton and Yeltsin walked through the dripping birches and pines to the university’s Museum of Anthropology, which holds the world’s foremost collection of Pacific Coast Indian totem poles and other artifacts.

Later, Clinton and Yeltsin returned to MacKenzie House and Mulroney withdrew, leaving Bill and Boris alone with their translators in a small sitting room looking out through floor-to-ceiling windows on the gardens and the sea beyond. The private talk, scheduled to last two hours, ran over by 30 minutes.

White House Communications Director George Stephanopoulos said that Clinton left the session with a “great personal feeling” for the Russian leader. “He likes Yeltsin,” Stephanopoulos said. “He thinks he’s a fighter, he’s not perturbed by long odds.”

Afterward, Clinton repaired to his suite at the Hyatt downtown while Yeltsin toured Vancouver harbor in a luxurious yacht, the Hotei, named for a Japanese deity of happiness and laughter.

The harbor is one of the world’s most picturesque, ringed with fog-shrouded mountains rising gently from the bay. The sun darted in and out in the late evening as freighters laden with grain and ore slowly steamed toward their berths.

During his boat tour, Yeltsin downed three Scotches and didn’t let an hors d’oeuvre tray go by. “It’s going to be an interesting evening,” a senior White House aide said.

Yeltsin and Clinton were to attend a dinner with their delegations Saturday night at Seasons in the Park restaurant in Queen Elizabeth Park overlooking the city.

Clinton spent the time between the afternoon meeting and the dinner reading and watching some NCAA tournament basketball, aides said, as a way of demonstrating how relaxed and confident their boss was.

As if the summit was no big deal.